A few days ago I helped both my mother and my sister to buy, store and handle their first cryptocurrency. Adoption is happening, and I'm doing my part!
Their First Bitcoin
The amazing part of this story is that I didn't even have to force it onto them! My mother already was one foot in the door, since I was hodling some cryptocurrency for her since last year when I convinced her to put a little bit into it (ahead of the big bull-run 😎) but I had been the one handling it and taking care of everything that came with it ever since. Until a few days ago, when she approached me with the news that not only does she want to buy some more, but also my sister now wants to own some BTC! Amazing!
I'm not sure either of them really understands why Bitcoin is such a huge thing. Perhaps my mother does to some extent, as she's forced to listen to me go on and on about it. Still, I think it's pretty exciting to encounter 'normies' in my life approaching me to buy crypto. Of course, it does help that I told them that right now probably is not a terrible time to buy. I did impress on both of them that they are themselves responsible, and I cannot be held accountable if we drop another 50%. They seem to understand 👍
Buying Bitcoin is hard
One thing I did notice is how hard Bitcoin and crypto in general still is. It's easy to forget when you've been in the space for a while and have everything set up, but as a newcomer there still is a lot of hassle involved with starting the crypto-journey.
Of course, there's the software hurdle. I decided it was probably best if they used a hardware wallet, so we got them a Ledger Nano S. Then installation followed - the 24 word passphrase deal was time-consuming enough, but explaining that the hardware device is something different than the desktop wallet application took some time too. The next big hurdle was actually getting the Bitcoin in the first place. There are many ways to get Bitcoin with FIAT but few of them are very fast. The easiest method is to just use one of those websites which buy and sell Bitcoin for a small fee. It wasn't hard to find, but regulations have really tightened up!!
Before they could buy first they had to make an account. Then they had to go through some KYC hassle where verification had to happen with the bank account that they wanted to couple to the account, as well as giving up a phone number. And that's just for Tier 1, which allows for a maximum purchase or sale of €100. We are working on getting them Tier 2 next, but this is a process that takes at least 7 days. We settled on a first, low purchase in order to get started and get them going.
Still, I was surprised to see this much hassle in setting up. I don't remember it from back when I purchased Bitcoin, and I must say it's quite an annoyance to someone new. At the end of it all we must have spent almost 3 hours from start to finish, and it involved a bunch of account creations, verifications, bank payments and whatnot. By the end of it, anyone would be tired and perhaps wonder if this Bitcoin thing really is such an improvement.Of course, many of these hurdles are thrown up by regulators and I do believe that the amount of 'friction' in purchasing crypto has increased a lot. That probably has a negative effect on the adoption rate - which is bad in a way, but also a nice sign that we're still in the very early days. Because of those hurdles, I'm sure many people could give up before long.
I told them to purchase in small steps from now on, explaining the basics of dollar-cost-averaging. I think both of them see it as an investment for the future. My mother is halfway into being a believer, and my sister sees it as an extra savings account of some sort. In any case, I'm pretty excited about having onboarded people in normal life onto crypto for the first time.
